Notable enduring shifts in the distribution of global labor were witnessed in the last few decades. Pressured by broad disparities in labor costs, manufacturing industries flourished in several emerging lower income nations, while withering in developed higher income economies. The decline of manufacturing, particularly in the United States, has however propelled labor more advantageously towards the service industry. Instead of producing manufactured goods at narrowing profit margins, domestic labor is allocated more productively towards providing more valuable financial, marketing, managerial, and intellectual services to businesses and final consumers.
While the service industry remains an important and substantial engine for economic growth, many large corporations and firms are finding it difficult to meet today's heightened regulatory challenges and increasingly aggressive price competition. For many of these large entities, the current economic disruption is too overwhelming and cuts too severely into deeply entrenched policies, practices, and structural hierarchies. Nonetheless, the ineffectiveness of large corporations and firms has created vast opportunities for smaller, more nimble and efficient private businesses and enterprises to compete more effectively for and fill the needs of the growing and lucrative professional services industry.
Yet, despite their growing economic importance, professionals, entrepreneurs, and other skilled individuals attempting to establish a private practice or other small business still face several well documented challenges. Among these is a need to establish an administrative office infrastructure, the associated costs of which, if not controlled, can quickly erode profitability and render the business unsustainable.
A typical office infrastructure comprises work spaces, file cabinets, conference areas, and a data communications network, deployed collectively for storing, maintaining, servicing, and sharing documents, records, files, and communications. Many of these office infrastructure functions—while traditionally requiring substantial capital investments in hard physical assets and equipment—can now be sourced and replicated electronically. However, most current providers of such technologies have focused their attention primarily on large corporations and firms, resulting in commoditized technical solutions that are proportionally complicated and costly to implement. Tailored practical solutions for small business owners and entrepreneurs, mindful of their particular concerns and scale of operation, are still largely untapped despite their increasing numbers.
Moreover, developers and engineers tasked with providing electronic business solution for large commercial entities typically work with similarly skilled in-house counterparts. Many are thus inexperienced and unaccustomed to servicing differently skilled professionals in smaller businesses that despite their pressing need for computing infrastructure have no deep aptitude, inclination, or affection for information technology. This technical divide often leads to higher costs for the small private business as it becomes reliant on specialized external technical support and services.
In light of the above, it is proposed that further advancement of the growing independent consultancy and professional services sector can be accelerated if provided with an alternative to the expensive and technically complex data and networking infrastructure solutions currently available. The preferred solution should be attainable, practical, and operational at a comparatively low cost and require only modest technical skills. Viable security, mobility, and expandability are also sought.